Chapter 2

COLIN’S POV

The impact felt like everything breaking at once.

One second I was checking my phone, confirming my flight, the next there was metal crushing, glass shattering, and my body being thrown forward. The airbag hit hard, something cracked in my chest, and then everything went dark.

I woke up to machines and white walls.

“Colin? Can you hear me?”

A doctor stood over me, watching closely. I tried to speak but my throat burned, dry and raw.

“Don’t try to talk yet. You’ve been in a serious accident. You’ve been unconscious for two weeks.”

Two weeks.

I tried to move but pain shot through my ribs and shoulder, forcing me back down. Everything felt wrong, heavy, like my body wasn’t fully mine.

“You have multiple fractures and head trauma,” she said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

Lucky wasn’t the word I would use.

“There’s someone here to see you. Max has been here every day.”

Max stepped forward, looking tired in a way I had never seen before. He grabbed my hand like he needed to be sure I was actually there.

“Thank God. We thought we lost you.”

“What happened?” My voice came out rough.

“Car accident. On your way out of the city. A truck hit you, you lost control, and the car flipped.” He shook his head slightly. “It was bad.”

The doctor stepped in again.

“I need to check something. What year is it?”

“2021.”

Silence.

I looked between them. Max didn’t speak. The doctor’s expression changed slightly.

“What?” I asked.

“Colin,” Max said carefully, “it’s 2026.”

I stared at him. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” He showed me his phone. The date didn’t match what I knew. “You lost five years. The head trauma caused memory loss.”

Five years.

Gone.

“The last thing I remember, I was working on a deal,” I said slowly. “I had just moved up. What happened after that?”

Max hesitated.

“You stayed. You built everything. You’re running the company now. You’ve been CEO for three years.”

That didn’t make sense.

“What else?”

He exhaled. “You got married.”

The word didn’t connect.

“To who?”

“Nadia Bush.”

Nothing.

“You were married for three years,” he continued. “You divorced her two weeks ago.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“You didn’t explain it. You handled it quietly.” He paused. “Same day as the accident.”

I tried to process that, but it didn’t land.

“Do you have a picture?”

He pulled out his phone and showed me one.

A wedding photo, me standing beside her.

Nadia.

She was smiling, but something about it didn’t feel real. I stared at the image, waiting for something to click.

Nothing did.

“Tell me about her.”

“I don’t know much,” Max said. “She stayed out of your world. You brought her around at first, then stopped. Your mother didn’t like her. You didn’t do anything about it.”

That sat wrong.

“Why did we divorce?”

“You didn’t say.”

That was it. Over the next few days, he filled in everything else. The company. The deals. The way I worked.

Efficient, controlled, untouchable.

It didn’t sound like me.

“Was I happy?” I asked one night.

Max didn’t answer immediately.

“No,” he said finally.

A week later, they discharged me.

Max drove me back to the penthouse. It was exactly what I expected from everything he had said. Clean, expensive, and empty in a way that didn’t feel like a home.

I walked through it slowly, taking everything in. Nothing stood out. Nothing felt familiar.

“This is where you live,” Max said.

I didn’t respond because it didn’t feel like living.

I went into the office, that’s where it got worse.

Files, contracts, emails. Everything organized, everything clear. I opened a few, reading through decisions made in my name.

The tone was sharp and direct.

Cold.

There was no hesitation in any of it. No room for anything else.

“Was I always like this?” I asked.

Max leaned against the door. “No. You became like this.”

I didn’t like that answer.

I kept going, opening more files, more records, until something different caught my attention.

Security logs, late access.

Times that didn’t match work.

I pulled up a recording.

The living room appeared on the screen, the lights were low.

Nadia was there, sitting alone.

Still.

The timestamp was past two in the morning. She didn’t move much, just sat there like she had been waiting for a long time.

Then the door opened.

I walked in.

I didn’t look at her, I didn’t stop, I just walked past her like she wasn’t there.

The footage ended.

I stared at the screen, something tightening in my chest.

I pulled up another recording. It was a different night, but nothing changed. She was there again, sitting in the same place, waiting, and I walked in like she didn’t exist. It happened the same way every time, no pause, no acknowledgment, nothing.

I leaned back slowly.

“I saw her,” I said.

Max nodded. “You just didn’t do anything.”

The room felt heavier after that.

I closed the file.

“Find her,” I said.

Max hesitated. “Colin—”

“I need to know what happened.”

He studied me for a moment, then nodded.

It took him three days.

When he came back, his expression told me everything.

“She’s in New York. She’s running a gallery. She changed her name back.”

Of course she did.

“She’s moved on,” he added. “Maybe you should too.”

I didn’t answer.

I booked a flight that night.

I found her at a gallery opening.

She looked different. Not in a way that changed who she was, but in a way that made it clear she didn’t belong to the version I had seen in that footage. She was present, talking, smiling, completely at ease.

For a moment, I just watched.

Then she saw me.

Everything about her changed. She turned and walked out.

I followed her into the rain.

“Nadia, wait.”

She stopped, then turned.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had an accident, I lost five years, I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember you, or us. I just need to understand what happened.”

“You don’t remember me?”

I shook my head.

She let out a quiet laugh.

“Of course you don’t.”

“Nadia—”

“You married me,” she said. “You made me fall in love with you.”

Her voice didn’t rise.

“And then you spent three years making me wish I never met you.”